Rawhead and Bloody Bones
by RobinRocks
Summary: The murder of a prominent detective's son proves to be a mistake that will cost the inhabitants of Fleet Street's famous Pie Shop more than they ever bargained for. Collaboration with AutumnDynasty.
1. Ch I

Happy Halloween!

This is AutumnDynasty, so the ANs will be way shorter than you're used to until the next chapter, when RobinRocks gets back from YaoiCon!

All I'm going to say is that this is the beginning of a short series and our first collaborative effort, despite both knowing eachother and being in the same fandoms for years.

Enjoy!

* * *

"...And the body?"

"In the grinder, twice ground already." Mrs Lovett feels like she could pull her hair out, she really does. But she's not getting any younger; hair won't grow back so fast anymore, and stress won't help matters.

This is going to require some thought.

Sweeney Todd drops his brandy glass on the table and begins to pace back and forth across the shop. It's closed for the morning, the smell of flour and barely-fresh pastry dough hanging in the air. Todd crosses to a window and pulls back the lace curtain.

"Do it again. We'll serve him up today," he mutters.

Mrs Lovett dusts flour from her hands and comes up beside him. It's a fine thing, their business. She won't let a small mistake like this ruin everything. Though his frown hasn't changed, Mr Todd's eyes are flitting across the street.

"Don't worry, dear. No body, no murder," she says.

It's going to be trickier than that, she knows. Someone's bound to realise the last place he was seen was Fleet Street. Especially their relatives. They've never made the papers before, their victims. In the... meat acquisition business, it pays to be discrete. Sly, if you will. They only take the loners, the poor men, the down-and-outs. Sailors, bachelors and the like.

In London, there's plenty to go around.

Todd grunts and swipes the curtain back across the window. It could do with a clean, Mrs Lovett thinks. Maybe tomorrow morning, when this has all blown over. It will have. It will.

There's a faint knocking upstairs at the barbershop door; wordlessly, Sweeney Todd straightens his waistcoat and leaves. As the shop bells stops ringing, Mrs Lovett hears a yawn. She turns to see Toby rubbing at one sleepy eye.

"G'mornin' ma'am," he yawns again. "Sorry I'm up so late."

"It's alright, pet, but don't you go sleeping in so late again tomorrow." Mrs Lovett's words are kind, but she's worried. As much as she could have used the help this morning, this isn't something children should be messed up in. By all rights, she shouldn't either. And just how much did he hear?

Perhaps Toby senses her mood, as he rushes to the broom in the corner without another word and, bless him, starts to sweep the floors she's already swept twice. She's even washed the windows, she's so worked up.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mrs Lovett spots the newspaper. She snatches it up and folds it in half, covering the headline. _Detective's Son Declared Missing. _The title's small and it's very unlikely Toby can read, but she's not taking any chances. Usually, she's the careful sort.

"My, my will you look at the time," she says and bustles around the shop, straightening thrice-straightened pots and chairs. "The meat'll need grinding again and I've a couple sets of pies to put in the oven. Be sure to open the shop at noon if I'm not back."

Toby grins at her with tentative pride. The lad's been wanting to run the shop for weeks.

"I will, ma'am." Bright and enthusiastic and enough to warm her heart a little.

But right now, she's got a newspaper to burn and a detective's son to mince.

He didn't like to think of himself as the kind of man who easily made mistakes.

(After all, that whole thing with Lucy and the Judge... That hadn't been a _mistake_ on his part, but rather blindness. How was he supposed to have known that he'd be shipped off for a crime he hadn't committed, all because some wretched so-called "keeper" of the so-called "law" had taken the notion that a simple barber's wife would look so much better on _his_ arm?

Oh, but the Judge would get his. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not even this week – but the uncertainty of when the pleasure would be his was what made him religiously sharpen every razor every day by the dull, smoky light of every dawn.)

No, Sweeney Todd didn't make mistakes. He was careful. He never slit the throat of any man too important, too kind or too crooked. People who stood out like that, for whatever reason, were the kind of people who would be missed. The kinds of gentlemen who were treated to Sweeney Todd's closest shave were those of everyday looks and habits. Not too rich, not too poor. Not too handsome, not too ugly. Not too pious, not too wicked.

It was the average man who ended up in the bellies of a dozen other average men.

(An average man – just as Benjamin Barker had been.)

The young man yesterday morning – his first customer of the day – had been exactly that.

So, naturally, Sweeney Todd had automatically assumed that it was alright to slit his throat while whistling some pretty little tune to himself, dropping the foamed, stubbled young stranger fifteen feet straight through one floor onto another as he wiped his face clean with the rag Mrs Lovett always took the kindness of leaving out for him over the rail.

It was his first mistake in a very long time.

* * *

The bell rang as the door opened, just as it always did. Todd's head jerked up and he swung slightly away from the window, flipping his razor shut. The early morning light, filtering through the smog perpetually flung about London's shoulders like a shroud, certainly _did_ cast very pretty shapes upon the silver blade, but now wasn't the time to be admiring them.

He'd gotten better at acting. More than once Mrs Lovett had taken to upon herself to give him a sharp talking-to about not skulking about looking so sullen if he wanted to seriously contribute to their enterprise, but whether it had actually had an effect on him or not, it was undeniable that his stitched-on smiled looked almost natural now.

"Good morning, sir," he said pleasantly, causally twirling his razor over his fingers and slipping it back into the leather holster at his hip. "To what do I owe the pleasure? A nice clean shave or something a little more in the way of pampering?"

He moved towards his customer as he spoke. He had a nice way of saying the words by now. It was a very rehearsed line, but practice makes perfect, and he saw the subtle downwards slope of the young man's shoulders as he relaxed, eased by the barber's friendly, only-too-happy-to-help demeanour.

It was enough to distract him from the more predatory way that Sweeney Todd approached him – something like the way a savage cat silently advances upon its unassuming prey behind the mask of the serene, whispering grassland – and the similar curious, greedy glint in the man's dark, tired eyes.

He didn't suspect for a moment that the barber, offering to take his coat, did so only so that he could size him up.

Todd had never seen this particular customer before. He was a lad of about nineteen or twenty, with fair hair that tapered down his cheeks into sideburns that were surely the cause of his visit to a barbershop. He was nicely-dressed, but it was clear that he wasn't some kind of lord or baron. His suit was a nice cut, though a common one; but moreover it was in good enough shape to imply that it wasn't his only one. His eyes were a very pale but very clear shade of blue.

The kind of eyes that someone inherited from their mother.

Sweeney Todd made a point of never asking questions of his customers beyond what service of his that they desired. Ask people too much and they start to get suspicious. So he didn't ask the lad where he was from, if he was a visitor to London, if he attended university or held down a job as a clerk or copyist, if he had a mother and a father and a sweet sister who sang for him and a little brother who always wanted to play.

He never asked any of those things of anyone. He never even asked for a name. He simply made his analysis and then made his decision.

In this instance, he mulled over it perhaps a little longer than usual. He'd tipped the boy back in the chair and was mixing up the lather in his palette when he finally concluded that he would give his favourite blade its first meal of the day so that Mrs Lovett's customers might have theirs.

The lad gave a quiet sigh as Todd began to thickly and loosely apply the foam with an idle hand really rather too good at what it did; it was clear that this young man was very relaxed. Todd glanced down at him briefly and saw that his eyes were closed.

For some reason, he was glad.

As usual, he was very methodical and quick about it. Brush back in the palette and palette back on the table. It was all just going through the motions by now. Razor warm in his hand, soft sigh of metal on metal as he opened it and held it high enough to just catch the light. It was ritualistic these days. Downwards strike, left to right, straight across; blood on his left cheek this time, a little on his throat and grubby shirt collar. It didn't mean anything to him anymore.

It had become simply another part of humdrum, day-to-day existence.

Sweeney Todd had never heard anyone beg him for their life. He wondered how it sounded.

(_That_ might change everything.)

Well, here, at least, there was no way to know. The boy had given the same choking gurgle that all the others gave, spasmed a little in the chair, and Todd had reached over his twitching arm and gave an efficient tug on the lever. The gears grinded and the chains rattled and the chair straightened out like a stretching spine, tipping backwards in accordance with his oh-so-careful design. The lad's feet slid out of sight and Todd heard the _snap_ and the _thud_ just as the trapdoor clicked neatly back into place and he found himself looking at the empty chair.

Todd reached for the rag, dabbing the blood from his face, using the reflection in the cracked mirror propped the far wall as a guideline; cleaning his blade lovingly on it afterwards. He adjusted his cravat to hide the crimson on his collar (something else that he had gotten better at with time) and was about to head for the door to descend to the shop below, with the purpose of informing Mrs Lovett that she had nothing to complain about now, she'd get probably get something between sixteen and twenty pies out of the broad-shouldered youth he'd just taken the liberty of dropping right at her feet, so to speak—

It was then that he realised that he'd left the boy's jacket hanging up next to the door. That would never do. All discarded items of clothing belong to his customers went into the bake-house oven with their owners. Trade policy, or something like that.

He crossed to the coat and unceremoniously unhooked it, holding it by the collar as he went back over to the chair and pushed the lever down again somewhat irritably. He glanced idly at the jacket as the trapdoor yawned open once more, his redundant gaze falling on the label stitched onto the lining.

Huh. Typical brand. Not too expensive, not too cheap. Average.

And then he saw something else.

The boy had been at least nineteen. Much too old to need to have his name written inside his coat, surely.

Nonetheless, there it was; in tiny, neat print on the bottom of the label.

_Thomas Laroche_

Laroche. It was a French surname. The boy hadn't been French, but that added up. After all, it was perfectly understandable that 'Laroche' was not a common name to be found in London.

In fact, Todd could think of only one Laroche that he had ever come across.

He found that his hands were shaking a little as he raised the blade and quickly cut the label out of the lining, jamming it into his pocket and letting the coat fall from his grasp through the hole in the floor. It fell faster than he would have expected it to, but he was in no mood for such curious observations at present.

He was out of the door, the bell jingling as it always did (every hour every day of every week), before the chair was even upright again.

* * *

Mrs Lovett rests in the armchair, stockinged feet tucked under the folds of her dress (new, it is; first one she's had in nigh on a decade). A battered, slightly singed book lies propped open on her lap, the last embers smouldering in the grate.

"Ma'am?" Toby asks softly, the lad not wanting to disturb her. "Ma'am?"

"Toby?" Mrs Lovett stirs and murmurs, closing the book she hadn't the energy to read.

"What're reading?"

Mrs Lovett holds up the book for Toby to read the cover, Crowquill's Fairy Book (1840). Toby takes the book and stares hard at it, a look of intense concentration tightening his jaw. Eventually, Mrs Lovett sighs; it's an amused, resigned sound, but her almost-son clutches the book tighter.

"They never taught us to read," he mumbles defensively. "What's it about?"

"Fairytales, love. Stories about made-up creatures to while away the dark hours." Toby looks thoughtfully at the book, then back to Mrs Lovett still curled in the armchair. He wants to ask, she knows, and she has to admit she's always quite fancied trying this.

"You're a mite old, but there's no time like the present, hm?" she says, beckoning him to sit on the arm of the chair. She takes the book and flicks through a couple of pages.

"You're such a good boy, we'll start with something you won't trouble yourself with. Rawhead and Bloody Bones."

She's never read to a child before, but Mrs Lovett has an engaging voice, tense and rapturous. Toby listens with horrified wonderment to the tale of two monstrous friends - Rawhead, a scabbed, mangled thing, no longer human, who stalks the streets at night looking for children to eat, and Bloody Bones, a dripping red artifice of bones and rusting metal who lives in sewers and piping, dragging naughty children to their deaths.

"Rawhead and Bloody Bones  
Steal naughty children from their homes,  
Takes them to their dirty den,  
And they are never seen again."

Mrs Lovett closes the book decisively and glances up at the clock over the mantle.

"Now you get to bed, dear. We need to be up bright and early tomorrow to clean before the weekend rush." Toby jumps up and heads towards the door. As he grips the handle, he turns.

"Thanks for the story, ma'am." Mrs Lovett waves him off, eager to be off to bed herself. However, as Toby opens the door to the dark hallway, he turns again.

"...monsters aren't real, are they ma'am?" he asks. Mrs Lovett's smile crinkles, and if her eyes look a little sharp, Toby doesn't notice.

"Of course not, love. Just make-believe." She pauses in thought, eyes on the book.

"Rawhead close behind you treads,  
Three looks back and you'll be dead.  
But close your eyes and count to ten,  
And Rawhead will be gone again."

* * *

AN. I should probably mention that there are many variations on the tale of Rawhead and Bloody Bones. It's usually a single entity, although I've seperated them for the purposes of this fic. Sometimes he's a gremlin, a boar, a disfigured man, a skeleton etc.

And if you've ever read The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray, you should recognize the final rhyme!


	2. Ch II

Okay, so! This has been a while in coming – there's no excuse, really, since it's not very long, but whatever. Welcome to Ch 2 of _Rawhead and Bloody Bones_, a _Sweeney Todd_ multichapter fic co-written (slowly) by the lovely AutumnDynasty and myself! AutumnDynasty was so kind as to post the first chapter back on Halloween while I was off gallivanting at YaoiCon...

So, yeah, enough about that. Hope you enjoyed the first chapter of our twisted little tale, and here is Chapter 2, in which things begin to go to Hell in a handbasket...

Thanks to: **shy7cat, PikaNecoMico** and **Bistre Melancholia**!

Rawhead and Bloody Bones: II

"Jasper Laroche's son, you say?" Mrs Lovett eyes the corpse thoughtfully. There's still some traces of shaving crème on the young man's chin where she missed it with the cloth. She's seen the detective's face in the paper enough that she can recognise the familial resemblance; this is Laroche's son. "Not like you to be so careless, Mr T."

Mr Todd grunts, managing to look even more angry than usual in the gloom of the cellar. In the distance, a leaking pipe drips. The quiet roar of the oven flames. Silence by London's standards.

"And he's just a lad; don't look like he needed much of a shave to begin with. But I s'pose, as they say, business is business," Mrs Lovett continues, wittering away more to herself than anything as she brushes ineffectually at a flour stain on her dress.

Todd steps over the body and leans to look into the top of the meat grinder.

"Do you suppose anyone knows he came here?" he asks. Mrs Lovett shrugs, plays with a lock of red hair, can't keep her foolish hands still.

"Don't know for sure. Wasn't watching the street." It's strange. She's not usually so flappable. "We should get rid of him. We could leave him a few streets away and the slit throat'll make it seem a mugging." There's something about the whole matter that's got her spooked. No plan ever runs smoothly and you have to roll with the bumps, but...

"A detective could tell he's been to a barber if we leave a body. We treat it like any other and put it in the grinder." Todd's face looks slightly incredulous. He hauls the body up and over the edge of the grinder. It thumps wetly into the machine and Mrs Lovett swipes at the flour stains on her skirts again. Her friend wipes blood-stained hands on his own trousers and says,

"What?"

"Nothing. I'll get him ground up by closing time. He won't be missed 'til then."

They can't afford to take any chances; not now when business has picked up for them both. Increased renown across the city. All she can think is _'He should have let this one go'._

There's nothing for it – they'll have to cross the bridges as they come to them.

Todd brushes past her and up the stairs. The edge of the meat grinder taunts her.

_That suggestion really had been madness._

She's probably worrying for nothing. It should have gone unsaid; they both know the body has to go in the grinder quickly. Things can get corrupt when law enforcement is personally involved... more so than usual, at any rate.

And besides, the first rule of business is that things should _never_ be personal.

* * *

Had that been a trace of disappointment he had seen in her face?

Sweeney Todd, for the most part, couldn't care less either way for Mrs Lovett's opinions of him and his actions. Certainly, she was his accomplice, but that was an entirely two-way thing; he didn't have to butter her up to stay on her good side, for what did she have to threaten him with? He might have been the murderer, but making meat pies of the victims had nothing to do with him. Back there with her and the body had been the first time he had even set _foot_ in the bake-house; and he was certain that she knew as well as he did that any attempt to turn on him and turn him _over_ would result only in two nooses being hung from the public gallows.

So he wasn't pretentious about her. He didn't care what she thought of him and nor did he act as if he did. Disappointed that his thoughts were consumed by Lucy and Johanna and Judge Turpin? Not his problem. Disappointed by his lack of real interest in _her_? Whatever.

However… The disappointment he had seen in her eyes down there in the basement had been different. It had not been born of longing or love – it had been closer to almost… _questioning_ his judgement.

_How could you have been so stupid, love? You should have let this one go._

(He probably should have, shouldn't he? This one. _This_ boy. The son of a detective. How _could_ he have been so stupid?—)

_No_. He stopped at the window, panting a little from pacing restlessly up and down the floorboards for what might have been past half an hour now. His favourite blade flashed in his hand, warm against his palm. How in hell was he supposed to have known? Oh, yes, it's all very well to stand back now and mutter about how alike in the face father and son are, but he had only been doing his job, _his_ half of the bargain – because you can't run a bloody meat pie shop without a steady supply of meat – and _how was he supposed to have known_?! He'd thought him a sailor or something, a young drifter like Anthony, alone in a big city where he knew no-one and no-one knew him. What, did she think he was… was _telepathic_ or something? Stupid woman…

Oh, but this wasn't good. He kneaded at his aching forehead with his knuckles and gave a groan of frustration. It wasn't fear that wracked him; he wasn't afraid of being arrested and punished for his crimes. In some ways, the hangman's noose might be something of a welcome relief—

_But_. He wasn't going anywhere until the Judge was dead. He'd vowed that the moment he had stepped back onto London's filthy streets. He wasn't leaving without Judge Turpin's head. And _this_… this completely… it just utterly…

He deftly flipped the razor this way and that as he came away from the window. He was usually fairly adept at keeping his temper in check, but when he lost it, he really _did_ lose it, and he could feel it rapidly slithering out of his grasp as he whirled towards the dresser. The leather box of razors, each silver blade bar the one in his hand in a snug line, sat on the surface; beyond it, the cracked mirror and the vase of daisies put there by Mrs Lovett two or three days before.

They'd been brown at the edges of the petals anyway and now they were visibly wilting, their heads drooping pathetically, stems beginning to shrivel.

Mrs Lovett. She'd had that idiotic suggestion, hadn't she? Leave the body down an alley, oh, don't worry, love, the slit throat will make it look like the poor soul was mugged. Stupid, _stupid_ woman. He'd already pointed it out to her, already shot her down, but it was obvious that anyone with half a brain, never _mind_ a detective, would be able to work out that the boy had recently been to a barber – no man was that smooth in the face unless they'd been for a shave that morning at most, if not more recently than that.

Truth be told, _he'd_ been slightly disappointed in _her_ for making such a ridiculous suggestion. She was usually far more level-headed. He didn't like to credit her with it, particularly, but it was true.

He looked at the daisies. He didn't like them. He had been eyeing them with distaste from the moment she had flounced up here with them and plonked them down on the dresser, saying that they gave the room some much-needed colour.

Colour. The glass was dirty and the water was muddy and the petals were limp and pale; the only thing "colourful" about them was their yellow middles.

Yellow. Bright yellow. Was she mocking him?

And now, when it was suddenly apparent that he might never get a chance to have his vengeance on Turpin, it seemed crueller still. Had she known? Had she known that this would happen, that he'd be so foolish as to murder a detective's son?

(The edge of the yellow taunted him.)

The glass exploded as it hit the wooden floor, shards scattering in all directions. The water made much the same pattern on the boards as the blood spattered on his sleeve. A few of the daisies lost some of their petals on the impact.

Todd drew back his arm and calmed his breathing down, leaning back against the dresser. Mrs Lovett had probably heard that. He ran his thumb over the smile of his razor and looked towards the door, waiting for her to come running up clutching her skirts, her wild hair flying. He rather felt like making it very clear that he didn't like daisies.

(The thing was, he knew what it was like to lose your child. Jasper Laroche wouldn't forgive this, just as _he_ would never forgive the Judge – the detective would not rest until he had had his revenge on the murderer of his son. Todd understood that, and he couldn't blame the man, either.)

Mrs Lovett didn't come. She must have still been down in the cellar, grinding the body into pre-pie paste. That was fine by him – he would rather she was making herself useful. Once the boy wasn't a boy anymore, but merely the filling for twenty-odd delicious, world-famous pies ready to be devoured this evening, things wouldn't be so personal. He'd be dinner for some hungry factory worker and another statistic and nothing more.

Sweeney Todd pocketed his razor as he heard the dull thrum of footsteps on the wooden staircase outside.

Business as usual, personal or not.

* * *

A hard city life hasn't beaten Mrs Lovett down yet and it probably never will.

Nellie Lovett has dreams.

For certain, they're unlikely little flutters of ambition, but that's not stopping her. She'll get out of London, she will. She's told Mr Todd before – the sea, a small bakery perhaps, and a family. Oh, how she misses having one of those.

There is one fly in the ointment, if she's honest. The boy isn't a problem, him wanting a family perhaps even more than she. And funds are climbing steadily with each passing day.

But she will always be Mrs Lovett and _Lucy_ will forever be Mrs Todd. It seems there's nothing she can do but try and wait it out. Worm her way in as the past fades further and further from emotional memory.

Sometimes she leans on the slab and stares out the window at the odd couple passing by. They'll never be like that, her and Mr Todd. Some days you just can't lie to yourself. But she plays out ideas in her mind anyway.

_Mrs Nellie Todd._

No. There's something off about it.

_No_. It'll just take some getting used to.

* * *

...Because they more or less got away with (actual) murder in the story/show/movie, and we thought it might be interesting if things didn't go... quite as well as they did in the canon.

Oh, and since AutumnDynasty neglected to mention this previously, in case you're wondering about the tense changes, we decided to write things from Mrs Lovett's perspective in present tense because she very much lives for the present, while Sweeney Todd's perspective is in past tense because he dwells on the past and his need for revenge.

Next chapter: Detective Jasper Laroche is on the prowl! Oh noes!

RobinRocks and AutumnDynasty xXx


End file.
